jtanabodee Posted March 30, 2020 Share Posted March 30, 2020 Hi, I am the maker of VTSP, Phuket airport. I have a lot of customers complaint about the elevation issue. I have them search for duplicate airport and it turn out it is from Orbx as the picture I attached. What is this file for? I was wondering if you add the parking to the airport like VTSP. If that the case, it would be great if you add the airports to increase the parking spot in "Addon Scenery" folder instead. Since adding the airport in Scenery/World/Scenery will cause a lot of problems. Because whenever the users purchase the new airport and add in to Addon Scenery folder, it cannot overwrite the existing airport in Scenery/World/scenery. Any airports added here will get the highest priority over the addon and cause problems all the time. Then those airport makers will get blamed since they came later. People often blame the latest one that they just got in their computer. Please do not add any airports to that folder. Regards, Jirayu Tanabodee A_A Sceneries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted March 30, 2020 Share Posted March 30, 2020 Hello, welcome. You seem to be suggesting that AECBIAR.bgl is an airport, when in fact it is just an elevation adjustment file. As I understand it, scenery\world\scenery is the only correct location for these files. Are you also suggesting that AECBIAR.bgl is affecting your product? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtanabodee Posted March 30, 2020 Author Share Posted March 30, 2020 If I have the airport in the area of that file, what the effect of elevation? Let say, the airport is closed to the sea shore and the published elevation is 25 meters. But the seashore elevation in that file is 0. FSX/P3D can only have one elevation. VTSP is in that area with 25 meter elevation but the runway 09 is closed to the sea shore which near to 1 meter. If that file of Orbx is 1 meter elevation, the airport in addon scenery cannot overwrite it at all. The two elevations become conflict. How would I correct that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtanabodee Posted March 31, 2020 Author Share Posted March 31, 2020 This is how it look when there are two elevation fighting together. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlosqr Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 Hello So nice to have a third party developer here in Orbx forum Being the time it is Nick might be sleeping so I hope you both allow me a couple of comments here as sometimes Orbx staff don't have third party addons like we users do. When we suffer the issue showed in your picture we run an Orbx tool named Vector, we select the ICAO code of the airport and disable the elevation issue. But not sure if this might help you or not. I have Phuket by the other developer and their product works fine as you can see here: There are no elevation issues but I do have this AECBIAR.bgl Off in my system: This might have been done by the installer itself. If an installer can do that.. I also have a sort of "fix" two bgls here the note: Instruction : 1. Make a backup for 2 files : APX74290.bgl and dem0903.bgl 2. Copy and replace 2 files to your P3D installation location. Most of user install P3D on "C:\Program Files\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v4\Scenery\0903\scenery" To be honest I don't know what they fix because with the P3D default ones or these "fix" I have no problems but of course, left the "fix" ones in the 0903 scenery folder Hope this helps somewhow Cheers Carlos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtanabodee Posted March 31, 2020 Author Share Posted March 31, 2020 Thanks Carlos, that is brilliant solution. But I wonder if it is better to have elevation somewhere else such Addon Scenery folder to let priority does the job automatically. This is not the only issue with Orbx. The AI such as TrafficX often add some limited edition of the airports to this folder to increase parking spaces. Some time these airports cause a very headache problem as well. The same issue of double elevations. When you need to disable that elevation file from Orbx, what will you miss? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 Hello Jirayu Tanabodee , there is no Orbx Global Vector airport elevation correction for VTSP. There is one file, ABP_VTSP.bgl which can be disabled but is most unlikely to cause the anomaly. I do not see a connection between the anomaly and the BIAR file. Are you saying that the BIAR files are the cause of the anomaly at your product? Or is it the Vector coastline? I am, like Carlos, at a disadvantage because I do not have the product. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtanabodee Posted March 31, 2020 Author Share Posted March 31, 2020 Thanks Nick for the reply. I don't have Orbx either. So, it is quite tough to know what is the real issue. But one customer used Simple Airport Scanner and told me that this file might have trouble with the elevation. What AECBIAR.bgl and ABP_VTSP.bgl are for? I have terrain mesh in Addon scenery as well and the priority is lower than the airport. It never cause problem since the elevation of the airport will overwrite the mesh automatically. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlosqr Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 Hi guys I leave it here as I'm useless now, I'm just an user. Jirayu, why not sharing with Nick the product so he can assist you better? I'm sure both as experts will make it work! Good luck Cheers Carlos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 AECBIAR.bgl is an elevation adjustment file for Akureyri Airport in Iceland. ABP_VTSP.bgl, to be honest, I don't know, I believe it to be the default airport data. The file seems to have no effect on an airport in any event. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtanabodee Posted March 31, 2020 Author Share Posted March 31, 2020 Would you mind, Nick, having my file to test with your system? I think just the ADE file would be enough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 Of course. You can send it by PM if you wish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtanabodee Posted March 31, 2020 Author Share Posted March 31, 2020 Please check your PM, Nick. What do you think about having elevation file in Addon Scenery or somewhere else that can be overwrite by priority. Files in Scenery/World/Scenery cannot be overwrite by priority. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
=rk= Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 Tic, I've followed from FSDeveloper and have some observations to offer. Elevation stub files are used to adjust default airport elevations to match real coordinates, they must be called from scenery\world\scenery. This is MSFS canon and elevation stubs will not work properly outside that hierarchy. 6 hours ago, carlosqr said: There are no elevation issues but I do have this AECBIAR.bgl Off in my system: This might have been done by the installer itself. If an installer can do that.. In this example, the .bgl has been doubly eliminated, because it is not located in a scenery folder, the only place from which it can be called to render and also it's file name has been changed, with the addition of ".off," making it impossible to locate by the software, even if it did reside within scenery\world\scenery. The other offered solution, if it is as appears, to copy/paste two files into their original locations, would have no effect and any perceived effect would be the result of other processes. On 3/29/2020 at 7:44 PM, jtanabodee said: SAS only scans for duplicate ICAO code. In this instance, SAS has found duplicate airports, but as Nick has informed above, the .bgls are not in conflict, they are properly located, in order to render properly. This is not to say that an Orbx elevation adjustment file, does not affect VTSP, just that it can't be found with a simple ASCII scan of SAS. You'd likely need "Complex" Airport Scanner for that task - or - some applied sleuthing. One tool that might work is Instant Scenery 3, believe it or not. It has a tool that will visually label all active .bgl's within a scene, including excludes and flattens. The tool is exactly for this purpose, identifying potential conflicts and can be configured to show path, scenery layer, even placement .bgl name, which is useful for managing library bgls. The reason it wouldn't work, is because flattens have no dimensional limits and it is quite possible that the "location" of the flatten is far outside the normal range and easily beyond the visual range of the scene in question. This is actually quite common and in my experience, Orbx files are notorious for this. So, what to do, when Sherlock Holmes' monocle is too shortsighted? Talk to the witnesses. I am pretty sure you can configure SAS to produce a list of all installed, non default airports. You could ask your users to help you find the defective software that affects VTSP that is not intended to affect VTSP. You should be able to find which airport has a defective flatten. Bear in mind that elevation stubs are not the only flatten that can affect other airports, any flatten can, however the solution is different. Elevation stubs must be rewritten or removed. That is the reason they are in scenery\world\scenery, because they are absolute and are not to be modified by subsequent scenery layers. Flattens that are part of activated scenery layers, may be modified or eliminated by elevation .bgls in scenery layers of higher priority. It will be difficult, to impossible to identify the defective flatten directly, for the same reason it is untraceable in IS3. The software that created it would be focused on the airport, or scene to which the flatten applied and a few errant data points halfway around the world, maybe their latitude polarity was inadvertently reversed, would be invisible. You would have to find the flatten by inference. So let's say you've gotten three users to run the scan and they all have the same Orbx airport. The first test would be to disable the airport and if that does not work, find and disable the stub. If either procedure worked, you can ask your users to run the Vector tool that Carlos described, using the ICAO of that airport as the target. If that does not work, you could ask Nick to have that elevation file patched through Orbx's normal software updating procedures and if that does not work, you could write your own version of the offending file, that does not conflict with VTSP and offer your users to install it instead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtanabodee Posted March 31, 2020 Author Share Posted March 31, 2020 Thanks Rick for the elaborate and detail answer. However, most of the users are average persons. They are not capable to do all the processes. They think everything should be all right out of the box once they purchased. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlosqr Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 Wow so interesting Rick, love to learn! Agree Jirayu but despite I'm just an user I'm willing to assist if needed so you can offer your product as we all customers expect, perfect out of the box Nick I think you'll count with Orbx staff which are more knowledgeable to do the required process but if I can be of any help (as a user, as per Rick's comment) please count with me if needed. Regards Carlos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jabloomf1230 Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 11 hours ago, Nick Cooper said: AECBIAR.bgl is an elevation adjustment file for Akureyri Airport in Iceland. ABP_VTSP.bgl, to be honest, I don't know, I believe it to be the default airport data. The file seems to have no effect on an airport in any event. ABP files in Vector contain revised airport background and terrain polygons. The airport background polygon could have a different elevation than the stock airport. In this case, BGL Viewer reports: Quote -Offset : Field : Description PolyLine # 0 ----------------------------------------------------------- 182 : Nb Points : 32 (0x20) 186 : PointsAltitudeType : SameAltitude 187 : Method Type : 1 188 : Data : Longitude, Latitude : 98.3114791, 8.1167293 : 98.3045983, 8.1154579 ... : 98.3114791, 8.1167293 295 : Common Altitude (m / ft) : 24.99 m / 82 ft 299 : : Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
=rk= Posted April 1, 2020 Share Posted April 1, 2020 Ok, I have to apologize, because I am just catching up. Everything I'd written is valid, however, your screen shot, Tic, is not characteristic of an airport flatten, so there is no point searching for airport stub .bgls, or random flattens from any scenery layer. Your screen shot is typical of a conflicting airport .bgl, a file people call an "AFCAD" and it is most likely named with some variation of vtsp. However, this is not required and it could be named based on geographic location, or even merged into several runway/taxiway layouts, covering multiple real world airports, that have been compiled into a single .bgl for convenience. The way you can tell this is by two visual clues. First, only the pavement is depressed, you can see several "cones," the tips of which represent coordinates of points in the ground polygon, probably from your scenery, that are at the desired elevation. From there, the render engine slopes the visual representation of the ground, to match the offending airport .bgl taxiways. The other clue is the interspersed render of default pavement, which you would have been careful to conceal beneath your beautiful and carefully constructed ground polygon. The two are now Z fighting for render priority, since they've both been mashed to an arbitrary elevation. This is what an airport flatten issue looks like, the entire area of the airport is significantly higher, or lower, than surrounding terrain: On 3/30/2020 at 11:46 PM, Nick Cooper said: ABP_VTSP.bgl, to be honest, I don't know, I believe it to be the default airport data. The file seems to have no effect on an airport in any event. ABP_VTSB.bgl does not reside in my default copy of FSX:SE. I keep it pristine and work only from the SimObjects and Addon Scenery folders, for specifically this reason. These "pavement only" airport files are often added by AI traffic addon software. It is likely that VTSP does not exist in default FSX, or it's available parking is insufficient to support the volume of traffic that is typical for that region. Those are the two reasons AI traffic software includes a vast selection of very, very basic airports and disabling these included airports, in favor of a properly developed addon that includes adequate parking and functioning runways, will have no adverse effect on the AI traffic. If this is the case, a traffic or even scenery addon, Tic, than these users are not, at all, average. They are actually you, or I, before we'd decided to do everything for ourselves, so to speak. They added your airport to a default installation and they have most certainly added ABP_VTSB.bgl, which does not exist in my perfectly average version of FSX. Resolving addon conflicts with default installations is customer support. Resolving addon conflicts with other addons is generous, but also an invitation for conflict, imo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted April 1, 2020 Share Posted April 1, 2020 Hello both, thanks again. If I were troubleshooting the problem, I would suggest first that Orbx does not have a version of VTSP and that the entire Orbx catalogue contains only one file, ABP_VTSP.bgl, which can be easily disabled by renaming it to ABP_VTSP.bgl.off, if only to simply rule it out, leaving no files at all. Vector AEC does typically cause airport elevation errors that resemble your screen shot, because they have the same effect as elevation adjustment files, amending the runway levels but not those of the addon's flatten. This is why, from the beginning, the facility was there in Vector to disable its AEC for addon airports. If Vector has no files in the installation, as in this case, then logically Vector cannot have anything to do with it and another airport elevation adjustment must be at work. This could of course also be another airport version altogether, a remnant of a previously installed version or even the default version which is present in both FSX and P3D if the scenery library were to be in disorder. I suppose another outside chance could be that there is a faulty bgl file somewhere that carries a different name but nevertheless, interferes with the airport elevation at VTSP. It would not be the first time. Although Vector does amend coastlines all over the world, the typical result of this does not resemble the screen shot, rather the typical result is airports offshore and in the sea, or their flatten sticking out into the water and looking very unnatural. My advice to a customer would be to disable all other addon scenery, leaving only the addon VTSP active. This should include all files added to the scenery\world\scenery folder and the entire Addon Scenery folder. This should eliminate all outside influences and let the airport display as its developer intended. Addon scenery can then be activated in blocks until a block causes the anomaly to return and then that block can be dissected until the exact culprit is found. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtanabodee Posted April 2, 2020 Author Share Posted April 2, 2020 12 hours ago, Nick Cooper said: This should include all files added to the scenery\world\scenery folder As what you said is quite easy for you, but for average users it is not that easy. Let suppose you have a lot of AI from different makers, there would be a lot of files .bgl there. One quick question, just only one. Please answer this question. If it is possible that those (so called) AFCAD files are in the Addon Scenery folder instead of Scenery/World/Scenery. This file such as ABP_VTSP.bgl will be overwrite by the priority in Addon Scenery. Users have no need to search for the files that conflict to the new airport. I found a lot of headache all the time, especially Traffic X. They add this AFCAD file in this folder in order to increase the number of parkings. It cause problem when users get a new airport to their Addon Scenery. It cannot overwrite by priority. I am not a programmer, just a user. I am not sure if it is possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
=rk= Posted April 2, 2020 Share Posted April 2, 2020 Your easiest solution for that file, imo Tic, is to simply offer your own version. Create a neutral file with that exact same name and an installer for people that have the problem. It can be as automatic as what caused the conflict. Asking another developer to retroactively edit addons will have no effect on software already released, anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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